MOSCOW, September 14 (RIA Novosti) - The question of whether the United States is at war with the Islamic State depends largely on which US official describes the situation.
This week, mixed signals have been emanating from Washington, with some saying that the country is indeed at war and others claiming the matter is simply a counterterrorist operation against the radical Sunni group that has recently taken large swathes of Iraq and Syria under control calling that territory caliphate.
On Friday, for the first time, a spokesmen for the White House and Pentagon said that the US was at war with the Islamic State. “[M]ake no mistake, we know we are at war with ISIL in the same way we're at war and continue to be at war with Al Qaida and its affiliates,” Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, press secretary of the US Department of Defense, stated during a press briefing on September 12. US officials tend to call the Islamic State, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), ISIL.
Later on the same day, Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, reiterated the statement made by the Pentagon using much the same wording. “The United States is at war with ISIL, in the same way that we’re at war with al-Qaeda and its al-Qaeda affiliates all around the globe,” Earnest said.
Both officials also stressed that this war is nothing like the Iraqi campaign of 2003, with the main difference being the absence of US troops on the ground. Furthermore, the White House has no intention of returning troops to Western Iraq and Syria. Earnest said that US President Barack Obama “will not allow the United States to be dragged back into a ground war. And that is why the President is not contemplating deploying additional combat troops on the ground in either Iraq or Syria.”
However, the fact that US soldiers will not be sent to the Middle East for now does not necessarily mean that the war will not escalate. For instance, Kirby warned that the US will be more aggressive in terms of airstrikes. So far, more than 150 of aerial attacks have been launched against Islamic State targets in Iraq. Kirby assessed them as “very effective” stressing that the US has already managed to achieve a lot “without needing U.S. troops in a combat role on the ground in Iraq”.
Both statements came a day after US State Secretary John Kerry explicitly said that the US was not at war with the Islamic State. In an interview with CNN, Kerry insisted that the United States was conducting a “very significant counterterrorism operation” and admitting that it will last some time. “If somebody wants to think about it as being a war with ISIL, they can do so, but the fact is it's a major counterterrorism operation that will have many different moving parts,” the top US diplomat explained.
Kerry also insisted that the Islamic State is in fact al-Qaeda. “By trying to change its name, it doesn't change who it is, what it does.”
US National Security Adviser Susan Rice shares John Kerry’s view on the situation. Moreover, according to her, wars and counterterrorism operations differ greatly. “I think, frankly, this is a counterterrorism operation that will take time. It will be sustained. We will not have American combat forces on the ground fighting, as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is what I think the American people think of when they think of a war.”
US President Barack Obama also prefers to call the US campaign in Iraq a counterterrorism operation. In his major speech outlining the US strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State he didn’t use the word “war” at all. “This counter-terrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground,” Obama said on Wednesday.
The US president announced his strategy to counter the Islamic State amid incessant reports of atrocities committed by the radicals, including rampant killings, torture, extortion, theft, rape, etc. The militants, numbering by CIA estimates over 30,000, have targeted members of ethnic and religious minorities, as well as Shia Muslims. US citizens have also been targeted. In mid-August, US journalist James Foley was beheaded by an Islamic State fighter in Syria in what was supposed to be a message to America to stop airstrikes. Two weeks later radicals killed another American journalist, Steven Sotloff.
Formally, the US campaign against the Islamic State does not qualify as war as long as it is not authorized by Congress. By calling it a war, US officials seem to convey a message that the US is committed to weakening if not destroying the Islamic State through prolonged military action.
